Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce]

That is exactly the point I want to make. I am concerned that, if marriage can be seen as so easily exited, more and more young people will think, “Why bother entering into it at all?” Marriage rates may well, and likely will, further decline.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady has been incredibly generous with her time. She, like I, views marriage through the prism of our faith, but I hope that she recognises that not everyone who engages in marriage sees it that way. They do not see it as a covenant from God. They do not see it in the same way she and I do. May I ask her to reflect on why, where a marriage has broken down, the process should be elongated and why somebody should feel trapped in a marriage in which they are no longer invested? Would she also give some thought to the notion that, when somebody has to give a reason over and above irretrievable breakdown, it leads to the conflict she is seeking to avoid?

[Fiona Bruce]

The hon. Gentleman, whom I deeply respect, has made a number of points and I will address particularly the point about conflict in a moment. However, may I first respond to the point about where a marriage may have—so-called—irretrievably broken down?

Despite what the Secretary of State said, I think these proposals will do even less than current procedures to help to promote dialogue and potentially therefore reconciliation. Currently, each year, approximately 10,000 divorces are started and then dropped. Many couples do give their marriage another chance. However, these proposals—in effect, promoting unilateral divorce on demand simply by serving a notice on the other person that the marriage has broken down, without having to give any reason at all and without the spouse being able to contest this should they want to—will, I believe, inhibit the dialogue that could promote reconciliation in some cases.

Mental Health in Prisons

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) on securing this important debate. A lot has been said about the prevalence of mental health issues within our prisons, which is even higher among women than among men. Shockingly, we imprison a large number of people essentially because of their mental ill health—people whose offending is linked in some way to mental ill health or distress. It seems to me an enormous failure of public policy over many years, for which no single Government are responsible, that so many people with significant mental ill health, learning disabilities or autism end up in our prisons inappropriately. I want to address what we should be doing instead.

First, we incarcerate far too many people in our country. We put far more people in prison than most other civilised European countries. Compare this country with Finland or Germany: Finland incarcerates people at about half the rate we do, but no one suggests that it is an uncivilised country in which lawlessness prevails. It manages its issues in a different way from us—I would suggest a much more civilised way.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentions incarceration rate. I visited Pentonville jail at the weekend, where the cells are 13 feet by 7 feet. Victorians were not known for their generosity, but their cells were built for one prisoner each. Cells of exactly the same size now regularly hold two or four prisoners.

[Norman Lamb]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point. The hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston mentioned that prisoners are often put in cells for 22 hours a day. Just imagine what that does to their mental distress, particularly if they are sharing a cell. It is intolerable and uncivilised.

Some good things have happened. The liaison and diversion service that is being rolled out nationally, which began under the coalition Government and was based on Lord Bradley’s recommendations, is a very good thing. The idea is that, as soon as someone with mental ill health appears in the criminal justice system, either in court or in a police station, they can be identified and referred for diagnosis and treatment. The problem is that if we do not have sufficient mental health services to deal with those referrals, we will not achieve nearly as much as we could with a properly functioning mental health system.

Mental health treatment requirements can be used as an alternative to prison. Addressing the underlying cause of offending behaviour seems to me so much more sensible, yet the Royal College of Psychiatrists notes a 48% reduction over the past 10 years in the use of such mental health treatment requirements—only 1.2% of offenders with mental health issues receive them. Much more use could be made of that option. I met the Minister a few months ago to discuss it in relation to the west midlands, where I chaired a commission on mental health. A couple of local magistrates courts are seeking to make much greater use of mental health treatment requirements—a really interesting initiative that is worth watching.

Our commission also focused on what happens when people leave prison. Too often, there is no link between the support or lack of it that people receive in prison, and what happens when they leave. They are abandoned in the community, often at enormous risk to themselves and sometimes to others. Professor Richard Byng leads the Engager project to enhance the through-the-gate approach and ensure that it is informed by mental health, so that people who work in the through-the-gate system and help the transition from prison back into the community are supported in their mental health needs and linked up to the services they need.

I will end by mentioning a case that is enormously shocking and that I do not think has yet been properly addressed. In March 2013, Phillip Simelane brutally murdered a young girl on a bus in Birmingham. He had not long been released from prison. He was known to have psychosis and a long history of serious mental health problems. His mother, a nurse, had been trying for years to get the authorities to engage with her and provide proper support for her son. She was massively let down by the system, as were Phillip Simelane and the victim who lost her life. Four years on, an independent review considered the lessons to be learned from the case. Its findings, and particularly the comments of its chair Kiran Bhogal, are really shocking:

“it is disheartening and worrying that our review, as with many reviews and investigations before ours, has found that many of the underlying challenges and problems remain despite the commendable effort made by all organisations involved to change practice and procedure…The fact that there remains a risk that these vulnerable prisoners continue to be released from prison without adequate support and supervision leaving them and the general public at risk is of extreme concern.”

I raised this issue in Prime Minister’s questions last year and I raise it again now with the Minister. I would very much like the Minister to meet me and key people from the west midlands to discuss it, because it is vital that we learn lessons to stop similar tragedies from happening in future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is right. We are determined to keep these drugs out of our jails, and that is why we have trained 300 dogs to detect them. We have also introduced a new drug test for psychoactive substances, and the UK is the first jurisdiction in the world to do that. The testing has been rolled out, although we cannot comment on its impact because it started only last year. However, we know from the evidence that drug testing has a deterrent effect on use and possession.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

With four suspected drug-related deaths in one weekend at the start of this month in Belfast and the coroner reporting that the number of such deaths has doubled in the past two years, this is an important issue that affects cities right across the United Kingdom. Will the Minister confirm that his review in 2018 will also draw on the experience of the implementation of the Act in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in order to get the full picture of how well the legislation has been operating?

[Mr Gyimah]

As I have said, the review will be carried out by the Home Office, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman’s question has been noted and will be reflected in the review.

Attacks on NHS Staff

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. As many people in the Chamber know, I spent 33 years working in the NHS, and I have been on the receiving end, as other Members may have been.

I remember a particular incident in a breast cancer clinic. I was warned by the nurses before I went into the room that the husband was very angry, not at anything I had done but at something on the way that had upset him. That is often the situation. It is not necessarily someone who would normally be violent or worked up. They are frightened for the person they love. That can be in A&E, where they have been sitting for hours and people are going past them, or it can be in the situation I had. What I had was a man about 6 inches from my face with both fists clenched. Because the staff knew about it, they were not seeing anyone else and had their ears at the door. The problem for me was that I could not afford to fall out with this man, because the pale woman sitting in a chair had breast cancer, and I knew I would have to work with the two of them afterwards.

The challenge of de-escalating such situations is enormous. NHS staff can become very good at it, but if they are under time pressure—we have seen that this winter in accident and emergency—it can pour petrol on the flames. Someone is saying, “Excuse me! Excuse me! Can I speak to you? My wife is ill,”—or “my child is ill”—and people are running past all the time. Eventually, a gasket blows. It is not always someone with tattoos of “love” and “hate” or whatever, making it obvious that they are trouble; it can be someone who is frightened. To de-escalate that requires training, support and back-up. More than anything else, it requires time, so that when we spot that something like that emerging, we can put the time into that person to explain their situation and what will happen next and to look at what they are worried about. If everyone is rushing to someone who is more ill, that situation will spiral out of control.

The hon. Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden) mentioned people who work on their own and providing them with lone-worker devices. I agree with that. However, the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) talked about someone responding to 999 calls in an ambulance on their own, which is probably not altogether appropriate. In particular, if we have a patient in the community who has been noted as being violent or aggressive in the past, social care workers and others should not be sent to that person by themselves.

In my health board, we have a service where someone who keeps being violent or aggressive in primary care is removed from that practice. Specialist primary care has been developed to provide care for people who have anger issues or violence issues so that care can be given in a protected way, not—we keep hearing about the seven-day NHS—by a female GP at half-past 7 at night when there is hardly anyone left in the practice. Some of the issues need to be thought about in advance. We need to think about how we set up the system and how we organise things in particular so we do not always end up with a kettle whistling shrilly, which is what we have seen over the past winter.

It is quite difficult to get accurate or comparative data. In England data are gathered through NHS Protect. It sends a bad message that a consultation is starting this Wednesday at the end of its contract—it is due to finish at the end of March—with NHS staff none the wiser as to who will protect them or collect the data. That is a terrible message to send out in the face of such escalating numbers across NHS England. In Scotland we have Datix information, which is the same as we use for any non-standard occurrence in a hospital or medical situation.

Members have mentioned the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005, which was updated in 2008 to ensure that it extended to all community workers—GPs, mental health workers, social workers, social careworkers and people assisting them—and many of the points made by the hon. Member for Halifax about her ten-minute rule Bill are covered by that Scottish Act.

That Act did not of itself bring the numbers down; as in England, they were climbing. The turnaround seems to have been five years ago in 2011-12, and part of that was because we, too, started to have practically a zero-tolerance campaign. People who walked into accident and emergency saw posters that said, “This is not acceptable behaviour and it will not be accepted.” It was easier to do that when we could say, “This was so important that we made a separate piece of legislation to protect all emergency careworkers.” The Act includes coastguards and lifeboat volunteers at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution—they are all covered in Scotland. That is a really important message to send out for a zero-tolerance campaign.

In the past five years our numbers have decreased by 10% and the number of violent offences taken forward by the police and prosecuted has decreased by more than a quarter. It does therefore appear to be having an effect, although the numbers are still shockingly high and something that we should not see.

In response to the Government’s comment about a new charge being unnecessary because it is covered by the offence of assault, we must remember that people in other businesses, and even in other public services, can bar someone and walk away. A healthcare worker cannot walk away. We have a duty of care no matter how aggressive, no matter how rude and no matter no violent someone is being, particularly if they are ill.

The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) mentioned that she would not support an automatic custodial sentence because many of these people have mental health issues. However, the NHS Protect data show that even when we exclude people with a medical cause or medical excuse for violence, ambulance staff report half of the assaults on them, but the acute sector—that includes acute wards and A&E— and mental health sector report fewer than 5% of all assaults. Creating an offence can encourage people to report.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

That is an important point, because part of the prosecutorial decision is whether prosecution would be in the public interest. The Crown Prosecution Service published some useful guidance three years ago about how many cases perpetrated by someone struggling with mental health issues were discontinued, or not advanced, on the basis that to pursue them would be against the public interest; so that criterion already exists. While the 5% figure represents what could be reported, prosecutors often decide not to pursue a matter on the basis I have set out. That does not go against the strong argument for a stand-alone offence.

[Dr Whitford]

The NHS Protect data clearly separate out the assaults with no medical cause, and then focus on what percentage of those are reported. The number is remarkably low.

The data that we are capturing in Datix, which shows high numbers in Scotland as well as in England, include verbal assaults and racist comments. Sadly, with some of the reaction after the EU referendum last year, we have seen horrific reports of people from the EU who work here—and make up a significant proportion of medical and nursing staff—being racially abused by the people they look after. As every Member of the House has tried to do in debates since the referendum, we must send out the message that that is unacceptable. An Act relating specifically to all types of emergency worker, both in the community and in hospital, would send a strong message and would have an effect. The fact that staff cannot turn away must be taken into account.

Just because a patient has a mental health issue, a learning disability or, particularly, dementia, it is not any less distressing for a member of staff to be punched in the face, have their glasses broken, or be cut or scratched deeply by someone’s nails. That comes back to how situations are managed. It should be possible, as soon as any incident occurs—or any perception arises of a patient beginning to develop violent tendencies—for a social careworker not to be sent in alone to deliver personal care to them; planning for the patient’s care should be done in a responsible way by the team, for both the patient and the staff member.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Robinson]

rose—

[Dr Whitford]

rose—

[Mr Gyimah]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Gavin Robinson]

The first step that the Minister mentioned, with the Director of Public Prosecutions, is an important one, but has he carried out any analysis with the Lord Chief Justice to see how much greater the penalty is for someone found guilty of common assault on someone in a particular occupation? Does he think that there would be benefit in saying, in the round with this type of offence, that although the penalty would have been three or four months, because of the aggravating factor of the victim’s occupation, there will be an additional penalty that is clearly spelt out by the courts, so that the factors that will deter a person from attacking someone whom we want to protect are clearly defined and outlined? If such analysis has not been conducted, I suggest that it should be.

[Mr Gyimah]

As I said earlier in my speech, a piece of work does need to be done on who is doing the assaulting and what has happened. I gave the simple example of a grandparent suffering from dementia who wakes up confused and lashes out. It is not as simple as saying that they have assaulted a member of staff in the NHS and therefore they should go to court, be convicted and get a long sentence. The key point, when people make this argument, is the belief that the creation of a new offence of assaults on health workers would deter such attacks and so offer better protection for NHS workers or result in more prosecutions than occur under current legislation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend the former Minister mentions an excellent scheme that I definitely support, along with a number of other schemes that are going on in the Prison Service and with some great employers such as Timpson’s, Greggs and Halfords. In our employment strategy, we will make sure that that works throughout the system, rather than having a few bright spots here and there.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

An important follow-on to that is the impediment that insurance premiums caused for employers who wished to engage somebody who had left prison. The former Minister, the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), was seized of the issue and pursuing good work in that regard. Will the Minister give an update on the progress with insurers and continue the hon. Gentleman’s good work?

[Mr Gyimah]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there are a number of barriers for employers in taking ex-offenders—some around trust, some around stigma—and some real hard issues such as insurance. We will be looking at all those issues and reducing those barriers, so that employers are incentivised to take on ex-offenders. Interestingly, those who do so, such as Timpson’s, say that some of their most loyal employees are those who have come out of the prison system. We want that to continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the incredible work that our prison officers do day in, day out. I can tell her that since 1 January 2015 we have appointed 2,830 additional prison officers—a net increase of 530—and that the vacancy rate is now 2.5%, whereas at the start of last year it was 5.2%. We will carry on recruiting at this rate.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

The Minister knows that we educate to rehabilitate and offer life-improving opportunities for those who find themselves in prison. The Minister is also seized of the information that we have shared previously about the impediment of the lack of provision of insurance for employers who want to offer opportunities when someone is released. Can the Minister update us on the progress he has made on removing that barrier to progress?

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for continuing to raise this issue. A particularly shocking case was drawn to my attention the other day: the household insurance of a family had been raised by hundreds and hundreds of pounds because the father had gone to prison, which put huge pressure on the family’s budget. I continue to take up that issue and others with the Association of British Insurers.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Lady is correct. Indeed, people can get a pension statement from the DWP, and half a million people have done so. Of course, an individual has to ask for that statement, rather than it being automatically sent. She raises a question about whether the DWP could do more to communicate directly, which I am sure the Minister will address.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, during my first appearance on the Front Bench in this Chamber. I debated with the Minister in Committee last week, and I welcome him back to what is no doubt the first of many exchanges here. I reassure anyone tuning in late that the broken elbow and rib that I am sporting predate this debate, and that our discussions, although heated, have been civil, although I did fear at one point for the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham).

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for opening this debate with a fantastic speech, and the Petitions Committee for ensuring that we could have it. Above all, I congratulate the women of the WASPI campaign, and all those who signed the petition, on their work to get us here. Their numbers are impressive, but we have revealed that the numbers affected by the issue are even greater, at more than 2.5 million nationally. Around 3,500 of those are in my constituency and, like many here, I have heard their concerns directly.

Hon. Members have made some excellent points and we can tell the level of concern from the number of contributions from both sides of the Chamber. In particular, I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) for their tireless campaigning, and all hon. Members who have contributed today. There are too many to mention in the time I have, but I will write to them all independently.

People listening to contributions made outside this Chamber may have heard the Minister for Pensions say this morning that the WASPI campaign wants to return the state pension age to 60. Let me put it on the record, as others have done, that that is not the case and it has never been advocated in my hearing. Opposition Members are not arguing for that or against equalisation of the state pension age. I hope that, instead of following such red herrings, the Government will listen to the women who are affected, and act. That is what we want to hear from them today.

Opposition Members have shared concerns about the impact of the acceleration under the Pensions Act 2011, the adequacy of the transitional protections and the communication of the changes to retirement ages generally. At one point, those concerns were shared by the Minister herself. She described the last Tory Government’s 2011 Act as a decision

“to renege on its Coalition Agreement, by increasing the State Pension Age for women from 2016, even though it assured these women that it would not start raising the pension age again before 2020.”

That is still live on her website www.rosaltmann.com. After the passage of the Act including the concession that the Minister will no doubt repeat shortly, she said that the Government

“seems oblivious to the problems faced by those already in their late fifties, particularly women”.

Will the real Ros Altmann please stand up? Apparently, she now prefers to stand up for the Government than for those women. That is a pity because the issues at stake are real and the Government give every impression of simply refusing to engage with them. Instead, we have heard repeatedly—most recently a few hours ago at Question Time—that the 18-month cap is their start and end point.

Let me set out my start point. We must take into account that many of the women who are affected by the changes have also been victims of gender inequality for most of their working lives.

[Gavin Robinson]

Will the hon, Lady give way?

[Angela Rayner]

I will not give way because I do not have much time.

The Equal Pay Act was not introduced until 1970 so many of these women began working even before the first legislative steps to ensure gender equality at work. Before I was elected to this place, I was in a traditionally low-paid, largely female workforce in social care. As an active trade unionist I fought for many years to improve pay and conditions, but even now we are a long way from achieving decent, let alone equal, wages in much of that sector.

Some of the women we are discussing today will have entered work before the 1968 strike in Dagenham. They will have been paid less than men simply because they were women. Those who are likely to have entered work earliest—those born between 6 April 1951 and 5 April 1953 —will not be eligible for the new single tier pension.

Another cohort, those born later in 1953, will have found their retirement age change twice: in 1995 and 2011—

Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

As a London Member, my hon. Friend may have noted that a week or so ago the Mayor of London pointed out that when employers hire ex-offenders, they report above-average commitment and loyalty; the issue is not only an important part of social responsibility, but very good business sense. London is leading the way in this area, with more joined up work between local enterprise partnerships getting extra skills funding into prisons. I want to see what is happening in London spread across the whole of England and Wales.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

In November, I raised the issue of the barrier that insurance premiums pose to employment for ex-offenders. I am pleased to say that the Minister has engaged with the issue. Does he have an update for the House?

[Andrew Selous]

I do indeed. The hon. Gentleman is right to pursue this matter. Recently, I have come across the issue of insurers imposing a blanket stipulation that employers should have no ex-offenders on their premises. I am not only the prisons Minister but a former chartered insurer; shortly, I will be having a meeting with the Association of British Insurers to challenge it on that issue and see whether that is really necessary. As a former underwriter myself, I suspect that it is probably not.

State Pension Age (Women)

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham]

Hold on a moment—let me finish what I am saying.

Were the intention simply to change all the arrangements for women born in the 1950s and go back to the original proposal, that would, I believe—the Minister might want to put a more detailed figure on it—cost the taxpayer about £10 billion. Yesterday we had the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith), calling for changes to universal credit that were not costed and for which he offered no alternative in terms of where the money would come from. Today we have a proposed transitional arrangement that might cost £10 billion, but its detail has not been spelled out, and neither has its exact cost or how it would be paid for.

I believe that it is incumbent on all of us as MPs partly to represent the emotional feelings of our constituents, as has been done very well by a number of Members today, but also to reflect on the reality, the cost and the implications of what is being proposed, which remains an open question.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

rose—

[Richard Graham]

I am happy to take an intervention on that specific point.

[Gavin Robinson]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that we had a quest for equalisation in pensions that has resulted in an iniquitous outcome for the women we are discussing? Social justice demands that whatever the transitional arrangements should be—he makes a strong point about that—he and other members of the DWP Committee will work to find arrangements that would ease the iniquitous outcome of this equalisation.

[Richard Graham]

In fact, the Committee had that discussion and we heard evidence from Women Against State Pension Inequality, which is a good, reasonable and sensible campaign. On the whole, its evidence to the Committee focused on the issue of communication, partly so that lessons can be learned so that when future announcements are made about what will happen in 10 years’ time, they are communicated effectively to those who will be affected. We do not want to end up in a similar situation in 10 years’ time, with another generation of women complaining about not knowing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

Given the Court of Appeal judgment on 25 November, when it sided with the Government, we have no intention of giving up on this. It is important to remember that people who seek to have benefit from UK taxpayers should show some connection to this country. It is perfectly reasonable to expect people to have continuous 12-month residency in the UK before they benefit from UK taxpayers’ money for their legal aid.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

On legal aid and any potential change, has the Minister turned his mind to the disparity involved when one parent abuses the legal aid available to them in order to get an upper hand in contact cases with their children while the other parent has to self-finance?

[Mr Vara]

There are, of course, rules and regulations as to who qualifies and who does not. I cannot comment on specific individual cases, but the Legal Aid Agency does try to make sure that it is only those who qualify who get the assistance it provides.